Consequences
by Wonderbob
Summary: Upon returning from the past, Marai Trunks learns the consequences of Time travel from a terrifying source. AU, Oneshot, Rated T for language. Revised.


**Dragon Ball Z**  
_Consequences_**_

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**_Recommended Music_  
Soundgarden- **_Black Hole Sun_

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_Every action, good or evil, large or small, is accompanied by consequences. One of the few and unchangeable constants in the Universe, they effect everything and everyone, from the smallest ant, to the most powerful of the Gods. No matter who or what you may be, you will never escape them.

It is a concept that Marai Trunks is about to become very familiar with. A concept that he ignored as he took his first round-trip journey through time.

In a bright flash of light that ripped the very fabric of Space and Time apart like a flimsy sheet of paper, a small domed ship appeared somewhere above the lawn of what was the great Capsule Corporation complex. The land had been ravaged by Dr. Gero's Androids after they were unleashed upon the Earth, and not even the Brief's great home had been spared. Gliding to a smooth landing while on autopilot, the ship disturbed very little debris strewn upon the broken and damaged ground.

With a series of loud whirs and hums, the craft shut itself off as it had no reason to remain active for the time being. The dome retracted and out stepped the ship's single occupant, a certain lavender haired teenager returning from his first trip through time. The first time he had made the journey to the past, it left him feeling as if he had the strongest intoxication ever experienced by a living being, minus all of the blind joy and euphoria that usually accompanied such things and this time was no exception. His stomach rumbled, his head throbbed, and he couldn't stand up straight even if the Supreme Kai himself asked the Saiyan to do so. Trunks stumbled away from the ship, tripping over his own feet, trying to remain upright. He stopped for a moment to get his bearings straight and to try to make it inside his home without falling flat on his face, but the warrior's efforts were to no avail. After taking a few more steps, he tripped and tumbled forward, falling on his chest and rolling onto his back with a groan and a few obscenities.

"Goddammit. Here I am, the strongest living thing on this planet and the last line of defense against those damned robots and I can't even stay on my feet."

Trunks allowed his head to rest on the ground for a few moments so that he could collect his thoughts and try to get over this terrible feeling, but before long he noticed that something was off. At first he couldn't make it out due to his _severely _cloudy head, but he soon realized that nothing was moving. Still were the air and the trees. Even the birds in flight were frozen and they hung where they were. Something was off. Something was _very_ off.

Getting to one knee exhaustedly, Trunks rested another moment with one fist on the ground and his other arm tucked in at his side. He pushed himself up onto his feet, swaying a moment before he saw the _thing _leaning against his home. It regarded the Saiyan with a smirk.

"Well goodness, old boy, I thought you never would get up."

Trunks rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the obscure creature from his view, but his actions did not accomplish anything. When he removed his hands, he could still see it. He tried his eye rubbing technique again, but it was to no avail. It was still there. The certain thing that had piqued his curiosity was a human sized dragon of the medieval-looking kind with blue scales, two wings, and a long neck. That was not the main thing that threw him off, since he was used to seeing odd creatures of this sort. Oh no, it was not the fact that a dragon was leaning against his home that made him question his sanity, but it was the fact that it was wearing a pair of baggy blue-jeans and a large, oversized t-shirt that read "Fight the Power!" on the front of it.

_What the hell does this thing want? _Trunks scoffed. The dragon held his index finger up in a knowing sort of way.

"It's quite funny that you should mention that, old boy. I was hoping that we could have a cup of tea over the subject, but it seems I am not very welcome here in your disheveled state. So I shall be quick about my business and I shall be gone from your life." Oddly enough, the dragon had a very noticeable English accent to accompany its other strange traits.

_Can this thing read my mind? _

"Oh quite well, young fellow. I am well versed in all sorts of telepathy," bragged the dragon, smiling with a mouth full of pearly white teeth. "Now, shall we talk about the business that I am here to attend to or shall we piddle around a bit more?"

Trunks was dumbfounded by the beast's attitude, but managed to nod. "Yeah, sure, let's get on with it."

Again, the dragon smiled another of its seemingly all knowing smiles, catching Trunks off guard. Unfolding it's arms, it pushed itself off of the wall smoothly with a flap of its wings and began pacing around the decimated yard of Capsule Corp. It began simply, at first.

"I'm sorry to be so rude, young fellow, as I completely omitted introducing myself to you. My name is Malcolm, protector of the flow of Time and-"

"Oh so that explains why everything is frozen," Trunks interrupted. The fact that he was talking to an English dragon who protected time itself did not seem to bother Trunks at all. Thinking back on this fact at a later time worried the demi-Saiyan a bit.

"Yes, one of my small abilities. Now as I was saying, I protect the flow of Time and I am a faithful servant of His almighty Lelos. I have come here to talk to you about your recent voyages through my realm."

"_And_?" the human asked, rubbing his temples. Trunks was normally a nice and calm person, unlike his rude state now, but he was still quite disturbed from his trip.

A tiny bit of smoke shot from the dragon's nostrils, creating small, rising clouds. Malcolm had begun his explanation very politely, but his patience was wearing thin. "_Human _do you have _any_ idea how difficult it is to repair a tear in the fabric of Time?"

Trunks shrugged and shook his head.

" It takes around ten of your Earth years for my men and I to repair a rift. With all of my power, it still takes me that long every time one of you bloody nitwits get the idea to go forward or backward in time."

"Yeah, I'm real sorry about that, sir, but I had to do it to warn my family and friends about the Androids that threatened them." Trunks argued, as if that would fix all of the problems that had been caused.

"Yes, I understand all of that good stuff, but you do know that it is against the laws of the Universe to travel through time."

"I'm sorry sir, but I didn't know that."

"Well..." Malcolm began, somewhat shocked that the boy seemingly had no idea about the laws of the Universe, "now you do, so don't ever do it again. If this does happen again, you'll be personally joining my repair crew and I on the next tear."

"Uhhh..."

"I'll just leave you with that thought, mortal."

Malcolm closed his eyes, muttered a few words under his breath, waved his hand through the air and paused for a moment. Trunks cocked an eyebrow at the Protector of Time, wondering if the being truly was as crazy as he thought he was. Suddenly, a tear appeared between the two. On the other side, Trunks could see the world that haunted his dreams, the Timestream. It was a malevolent, swirling mass of colors that would drive a normal man insane at first glance. Malcolm placed one leg into the void and threw a smile and a slight salute Trunks's way. But before the dragon could leave, Trunk's held up a hand to stop him from stepping completely through the portal.

"There's no way that you could leave everything like this for a half-hour or so for me to take care of some business, is there?"

Again, Malcolm smiled and shook his head. "I'm sorry, my friend, but we're not allowed to interfere in the business of mortals. Another of the basic laws, I'm afraid."

"Ah, I should've guessed," Trunks shrugged. "No harm in trying though, huh?"

"Yes, yes. It couldn't have hurt." Malcolm waved again, "I truly do hope we don't have to meet like this again. Cheerio old boy."

With that, he brought the rest of his body through the portal and it disappeared as quickly as it had come. The second the portal disappeared completely from sight, everything went back to normal. The birds completed their flights, the trees swayed in the breeze, and the sounds of the city all resumed.

It was one of the most surreal things Trunks had ever encountered. Sure, the Saiyan had been battling the Androids for most of his life, but this just took the cake. For a moment, he wondered if all that he had seen was actually real or if it was a strange delusion caused by his journey through the time stream.

_There's no way I could have imagined that. It was all just too real.  
_

As he walked to the back door of his house that he always used, his toughts began to return to the strange thing that he had just encountered.

_How the hell could that thing survive in the timestream? I thought I was going to lose my sanity the first time I went through that Hellish place. But I guess the job title of Protector of Time helps with those little things._

The event left Trunks's thoughts soon after due to his training and battling of the Anroids. He wouldn't think about it again until he began to step back in the pod to return to the past. Dismissing the threats Malcolm made, he climbed into the cockpit and closed the clear dome over his head. The lavender haired Saiyan had no idea of the events would occur because of his carelessness.

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Malcolm's Manor of Time was one of the most widely recognized buildings in all of the Multiverse. Even though there wasn't really anything spectacular about it on the outside, the inside was what confounded people. Inside of it sat the actual Timestream itself. The large, palatial estate was located on a small, grassy planet. With a long driveway running up to the garage and a nice, shiny black car sitting in it, it looked like a normal, everyday mansion. In every sense of the word, it was normal, except for the fact that the small planet it was resting on was amid a black void that happened to rest outside of the Multiverse, along with Otherworld and most other heavenly places. It was the current home of the Protector of Time, and hip-hop afficionado, Malcolm. Like most other extra-Universal beings, he had a penchant for small planets, shiny cars, and nice homes.

The dragon was currently sitting on his back porch with a small cup of hot tea in hand. Sounds of muted hip-hop could be heard coming from inside the house as Malcolm lazily sipped at his drink and watched the black void above his head. He had just returned from his visit with the time traveling Saiyan and decided to unwind a bit before going about repairing the newest tear in Time.

Malcolm had decided to let the boy off easy this time with only a mere warning, but he knew that Trunks would make the journey again. How could he not know that simple fact? He was the Protector of Time afterall. The dragon really didn't want to have to punish the boy for his mistakes, since he had grown to like him over the course of his earlier visit, and he even understood why Trunks was doing this, but the Laws had to be upheld and enforced. If it started getting around that the great Malcolm had let off a mere Saiyan, he would never hear the end of it from his fellow Gods. He did hate destroying time lines, though. The thought of erasing untold trillions of beings from existence really didn't sit well with him.

After a few billion years of managing time, it didn't cause him to lose sleep anymore, though. Finishing up his cup of tea, he placed it on a tray that one of his servants would pick up at a later time. He pushed his chair away from the table, got to his feet, and walked inside of his mansion. Without stopping in his kitchen, he made his way to an elevator at the rear of it and took it to the heart of his world. Malcolm stepped out, only to be greeted by his newest crew of workers. The dragon smiled and held up a hand, signaling them to finish their conversations.

"As you all know, you have been selected to repair this newest rip in time, so without further ado, why don't we get on this job and try to get it done before the decade is out?"

The group of workers grumbled, hoisting their tools upon their shoulders. They filed into a line to get onto the cart that would take them to the job site. Once everyone was aboard, off it went into the abyss of colors.

_Yep, just another day of work_, Malcolm grumbled as the group reached to tear. The force went to work on the tear without a moment's notice, hoping to finish it as soon as possible.

_End Consequences_

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**Author's Note: **This story is going to serve as a launching point to my future series and collection of short stories. Kind of like a prologue of sorts, an event that will change the DBZ Universe as it is forever. I've already got a few of the chapters of my first multi chapter story written out, so expect them to be published in the next few months or so. Music will also play a role in my stories. Some songs are meant to represent the stories and chapters and some are just meant to sound cool, but it isn't a requirement for you to listen to them. So, how was my first published Dragon Ball Z fic? Good? Bad? Terrible? Let me know. Also, if you'd like to be put on a list of people who are to be alerted when the series starts up, leave me your email address. 

**2-4-06:** Minor revisions. Nothing special.


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